West End Deli (Leederville, Perth WA)

95 Carr St
West Perth Western Australia 6005
(08) 9328 3605
Website
Facebook
Hours:
    Mon-Sun 7:00 - 15:00
    Thu-Sun 18:00 - 22:00
   

Established by Justin and Christine Peters, the West End Deli is located in a quite corner in a quiet street in an odd area that is remarkable, precisely, because of the constant hub of customers visiting the place. It is a suburban place, and that has a relaxed atmosphere, and lack of hype, and that is visited by patrons of all ages and sorts. The inside space if wonderfully woody, with a mix of rustic, faux-decay and vintage quirky decoration elements, like the hanging-chairs lamps. It has the feeling of an old Italian or French café.

The staff are very smiley, friendly, and welcoming with all customers. The service is relative fast even for cooked dishes, and they have a waiter service, so you can seat and relax.

THE FOOD
 Their food is very good, and they have a good selection of dishes that stand out for their plating and great mix of flavours, colours and textures.
+ Their food is very good, great taste, texture and presentation, and the menu changes regularly, which is very exciting if you visit often. They also have a big selection of desserts, drinks, and wines.

The pork belly, caramelised peaches, basil, sweet potato was a superb dish regarding presentation, flavour, colours and textures. Pork Belly is fatty, so it really needs of contrasting refreshing flavours to clean the palate, and the mix in this dish was fabulous. The size of the belly was also great. Not too big, not too small. My belly was in love when met this peachy belly.

I also found excellent the charred octopus salad with pears, walnuts, charmoola and orange sauce.

Their home-made fettuccine, on the contrary, were disappointing in texture and flavour. They were a bit hard, not "al dente", therefore difficult to roll on your fork, they were dry, and the chilli was not hot at all. Nothing memorable. The dish needs a bit more of oil -perhaps herb or chilli infused oil- to make it smother, and a bit of more stuff on the plate.

DESSERTS 
They have a counter with already-made cakes, cup-cakes and muffins, decently priced, and a small menu of special desserts. The latter are much more expensive, but way more interesting and inventive.

The Pistacchio Jaconde was a highlight for me -  a crunchy cylindrical chocolate carcase enveloping a marshmallow fluff and pistacchio mouse resting on a sprinkled bed of pistacchio and berry, with fresh blueberries and pear puree dollops. The dish was artistically plated, and had a wonderful mix of colours, textures and flavours, with the right amount of sugar. It is a delicate, light and flavoursome dessert, perfect for summer. One of my favourite desserts of 2012, which is a lot to say!

Their cheesecake with salted dulce de leche, is an inventive fun dessert. The cheesecake is potted and served with a tube containing the dulce de leche -a sort of salted caramel cream- and a super-cute mini-bottle containing popping vanilla salts, which you add as a topping and keep popping in your mouth and ears while you are eating. However, the cheesecake is too sweet for my taste, and, therefore, the flavour of the cheese gets masked by the excess of sugar.

THE COFFEE

Their flat-while, despite being well prepared, is disappointly bland in flavour, strength and size of the cup. Average. To get a good one, forget sugar and order a long topped-up Macchiato, then you get a very good flat white :O.

EXTRA KUDOS
+ They open, morning, day and evening.
+ You can pay at the end, before leaving.
+ The staff refill you water glasses regularly. 
+ The place is good for groups and solo eaters.
+ They have EFPTOS.
+ Their toilets, at least the ladies', are very clean, stylish and classy. A bit small, but a pleasure to rest your derrière on.
+ They have a reasonable amount of newspapers for customers. 

DISAPPOINTING
- Most dishes contain small servings of food and are a bit pricey. There is no reason for that when most of the produce they use is seasonal. 
- They serve their coffee in those infamous tiny glasses that are becoming part of Perth coffee scene.
- The  service can be lacking or distracted even when the café is not busy.  

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT 
- My main criticism to the restaurant and its food is the lack of consistency in the quality of the dishes served. Some of them are artistically prepared and served, while others are average. I have seem most of their egg brunches and I would not bother with those. However, the sides look yummy. I think that they should put a bit of more effort in having a threshold regarding quality of the dishes, so there is a balanced standard and not the differences I have experienced myself.   
- The ventilation system is deficient. They have huge fans on the walls, but there are blind spots, underneath the fans, and the tables underneath can be very hot and humid if you happen to be there on a hot day. There is an air-con device on the wall, but has never been on during my visits. 
- Their website does not show their drinks, wine list, and dessert menu. It takes little effort to improve that.

TIP
* Order a takeaway coffee to get the size you want. It is slightly more expensive but way bigger.
* Go there for things you cannot prepare at home or buy at a normal bakery, as those are the ones that will wow you.

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Fashion Magazines' Beauty Advice - 3

Final words, after the first and second entries on this topic.

A confession - I do love some luxury beauty products -especially make-up- advertised in fashion magazines, mostly because of the glamorous packaging and design, and their wonderful scents.

Another confession - My life at University extended longer than for most students. I was poor when I was a student, a postgraduate student and a PhD. student. Too poor, too long. I used to go to stores and use perfume and make-up testers for my beauty purposes. The expensive ones. I can be very cheeky. That is a virtue when you are poor, believe me. I could only afford things like Maybelline or cheaper brands. Being able to have something luxury today is not only a pleasure, it is an indication that I have reached a point in life that I dreamt about when I was poor. Kudos to me. 

This does not change a thing what I have said about beauty products in the previous entries.  

If you like luxury items be clear why you do buy them. Do not fool yourself thinking that they will have a bigger impact on your physical beauty, or the state of your skin, hair or nails. Sometimes they do, sometimes they do not.  I'd say, most times they do not.

An example of positive difference I find it in MAC eye shadows, which are a bit pricey -even if bought online- but they don't smudge, last the whole day and don't irritate my skin.  Way better than any other brand I have tried.

An example of no difference can be found in the Chanel Foundation powder and Revlon Mineral Foundation I use in summer or the Revlon Photoready airbrush mousse and Lancôme Vitalumière foundations that I use in winter. The colouring is the only difference, and they both do a great job.

An example of negative difference. I cannot tolerate most Lancôme moisturisers, which have a burning effect on my skin. However, my skin does not react or have a problem with moisturisers from L'Oreal, Neutrogena, Nivea, Dove, Sukin and other "cheapies".

***

Fact  - Chanel and Bourjois are part of the same brand and produced in the same facilities, but packaged and marketed differently.

Fact - L'Oreal owns not just L'Oreal mainstream products, but also Lancôme, Yves Saint Laurent, Giorgio Armani, Biotherm, Cacharel, Diesel, Kiehl's, Stella McCartney, Garnier, Maybelline, Vichy, La Roche, Kerastase, Redken, among many other luxury, medium quality and natural-beauty brands. Sometimes they are the same thing packaged differently with different colouring, and scent.

This being the case, if you find a medium-quality product from these holdings, there is a high probability that they have been produced in the same facilities, are good quality, and have similar qualities, minus the glamorous packaging and high price.

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"Moon" by Duncan Jones (2009)

Moon is an indie retro-Sci-Fi film that narrates the last days of San Bell on a station on the moon at the end of his 3-year contract.

The storyline is excellent, but the script and the mood of the movie get deflated mid way, as the movie does not have a marked tempo and the in crescendo necessary for the viewer to get excited and anxious towards the end. Although the story carries on very well, there is not enough tension and mystery to give the movie the little push up it need it to get a more rounder film.

The aesthetics of the movie are very much the same you could find in classic sci-fi of the 1970s, with miniature lunar sets, clean white interiors and furniture, miniature vehicles. Even the robot is chunky and heavy, more emotional than functional, nothing to do with modern robotics. Even the atmosphere is classic, with that unsettling feeling of old sci-fi movies. 

Sam Rockwell really shines in his double performance, especially in the skin of the first character, showing what a great actor he is. The changes of clothing are minimal, but his performance really gives life to two different people.  In fact, Rockwell makes the movie, as it is him who carries the weight of the story and makes it believable. This is a performance worth of an Oscar nomination.

Keven Spacey, the voice of robot Girty, is not especially inspired, though, as his voice is dull and plain and improper of a chunk and primitive robot. One would expect 1/ a more mechanical voice, if the robot is as it looks, or 2/ a more human voice, with more human inflexions and tone, in case the chunkiness is just apparent.

I hated the voice in off at the end, summarising what happens at the arrival to earth... which I found a little bit cheesy and unnecessary, unless you want to shoot a follow up.

A very good science-fiction film, entertaining, and well acted, that did not live to my expectations. 

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Fashion Magazines' Beauty Advice - 2

Despite the ever-growing Beauty sections in fashion magazines and normal newspapers, most of the beauty secrets that work long-term and make you beautiful outside do not need of advertisement. They are free or economical, and they are based on a holistic view of what beauty is. No cream, serum, make-up or fashion item can work if you do not have a healthy (or healthy-ish) lifestyle and your self does not come out from within. Unless you are really deformed, have an obvious birth mark or burnt, you do not need any special beauty product. Do not let the fashion magazines tell you differently.

Here the secrets to any lady's long lasting beauty:

1. Go to the gym regularly, so your skin cleanses itself from inside out and blood is pumped to it fast. If you are not into gyms, jogging or having any other fitness routine should do. The after-workout glow is amazing! No cream or facial has ever done the same for my skin.
2. Walk to most places, and take the steps not the lift. 
3. Eat well, everything you fancy but in moderation. Avoid living on junk food and take-away food. Do not diet unless you are obese. 
4. Drink water, limit the amount of fizzy drinks you have, and drink alcohol in moderation.  
5. Do not smoke and do not take drugs.
6. Sleep soundly and at least 7 hours a day. Do not over-sleep!
7. Clean your skin every day. You need water and a bit of mild soap/cleanser. There are plenty of cheap hypo-allergenic products out there.  
8. Moisturise regularly (any medium brand would do; choose the brand that better suits your skin).
9. Apply make-up to highlight your best features not to turn you into somebody that is difficult to recognise once you remove it. (Any medium brand would do, adjust it to the specific needs of your skin).
10. Use ammonia-free hair colouring, translucent colour-free shampoos and mild masks and conditioners.
11. Avoid baking under the sun in the hottest hours of the day, especially in summer.
12. Use mild +30 sun-block or a sun-smart moisturiser. Most brands are good. Some of them are allergenic, so choose the one that suits you, specifically. Price does nothing to do with their quality.
13. Use beauty products that are low in chemicals.
14. Use Aluminium-free deodorants. There is an increasing number of alternative  cheap plant-based brands that do not irritate your skin.
15. Dress for your body shape and dress age wise.
16. Smile and laugh as much as you can. Those wrinkles make you even more beautiful.
17. Keep your stress levels under control. Do not stress for what is not under your direct control, and learn to cope with those people or circumstances that are making your life stressful. 
18. Learn to relax doing whatever activity relaxes you.
19. Live a life that fulfils you - that gives you a happy beautiful glow that no cream would ever do. 
20. Most importantly, feed your soul and brain, so the beauty you have comes from within, not just from your body, and you still will have it when you are 50, 60, 70 or 80y.o.a.

It sounds obvious. It is! 

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Fashion Magazines' Beauty Advice - 1

If you are into fashion magazines and you purchase or browse them regularly you might have noticed three facts that make of our delight less passionate.
 
FACT NUMBER ONE. Most magazines seem to have the same content, cover celebrities, products, and articles. There is a reason for that. Big corporations hold most women's magazines. Just to use an example, the Hearst Corporation owns, amongst many others, Harper's Bazaar, ELLE, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan,  and Woman's Day; Condé Nast owns the Vogue and Glamour magazines, while Time Inc owns Instyle and Mariclaire UK among others.  

FACT NUMBER TWO. They preach one thing and do another regarding women body issues. They preach and talk about real women, women accepting our bodies no matter the size and the dimples, and about women needing to love ourselves. However, they keep featuring models and celebrities that are extremely thin, women that represent a minuscule percentage of the population. Not only that, those celebrities showcased are airbrushed to remove any sign of imperfection and humanity from their physique, so we feel -in comparison- inadequate, big, fat, and ugly. No wonder why we avidly peruse the beauty section to fix ourselves.

FACT NUMBER THREE AND THE POINT OF THIS ENTRY. The number of explicit, implicit and coveted marketing ads has been multiplying progressively, and the marketing techniques used are every day cleverer at reaching our psyche. Which sort of advertisement do we find in our favourite fashion magazines?

1/ Direct explicit advertisement.  Wonderful stylish, lavish creative photos that not only sell a product, they do reflect the brand's style, philosophy, age group, luxe level and social group to whom the ad is directed.

2/ Promotional paid spaces that clearly state they are. For example, a page devoted to a new cosmetic cream in which the scientific research and testing of the product are specifically mentioned, and comments from celebrities or consumers provided. They are still ads, but masked by a "scientific" coat. They do not lie, just showcase anything good about the product and disregard the rest.  

3/ Promotional spaces that do not say to be so, but they are. A clear example is the article "Art of Happiness" by Eugenie Kelly published in the December 2012 Harper's Bazaar (pages 112-113). The article has a full page with a photo of a bottle of  "La Vie est Belle", the latest perfume by Lancôme, and a page devoted to the creation of the perfume and Julia Roberts' direct involvement in it; there is an interview with her, but her photo cannot be seen anywhere. The article is all about the perfume. No promo sign is to be seen anywhere. I consider this a coveted promotion disguised as journalism, which would make sense in a marketing magazine or a magazine just devoted to perfume, not a fashion magazine directed to the general public. How do we know it is advertisement? Easy! Go go page 205 in the same magazine, to the Bazaar's gift list section, and there you have the same perfume. Your eyes are drawn to this specific perfume immediately because its positioned right in the centre of the page, and there is a read heading over it. 

4/ Editor's Pics section. Who better than a beauty editor to tell us about the virtues of any beauty product, the latest products released, and what's not? We guess a magazine's beauty editor receive tons of samples from gazillion beauty brands. I have not doubt that they know the latest of the latest. However, there is no guarantee that those showcased in a magazine are the best, or that the product has been thoroughly tested by the editor or the magazine team before being recommended. Many times they pass the info package provided by the brand without further addition. Not always, but many times. On the other hand, there is a tendency to recommend luxury (from fashion corporations) items, those that are burden to our wallets.

5/ Products of the Year Awards pages. Many magazines have this sort of awards held yearly or half-yearly. They gather a panel of professional make-up artists. beauticians and fashion experts -most of them with direct links to the beauty industry- to decide on the best products: face make up, hair, nails, body, and perfumes. There is not a clear description of why they are chosen. They are professionals and I trust them; however, the opinion of consumers is rarely asked, and if it is -like in In Style- is just an addenda. 

I am not saying that the products recommended are not good. I am saying, that I have tried plenty of the things you find recommended from big brands, and many of of them are as remarkable as the medium-quality brands we buy from any supermarket or beauty store. To me, my opinion on a beauty product is better than the one of a professional because a) has no commercial interest behind it b) it is based on direct experimentation on me for a certain period of time. 

Recommendations on perfumes and creams are especially silly, as the perfume react to your specific skin's Ph, and smells differently on different people. A moisturiser or serum could be heaven for your skin, but hell for mine whether it is de luxe or not.  

6/ Interviews with celebrities about their beauty's case, beauty routine, or favourite beauty products. Most of these celebrities are openly sponsoring certain brands, which means that they are being paid to be the face of a brand or product, to say that they use it, and to be photographed using it. So, if a  magazine interviews them, which products do you think they are going to recommend? Right, you've got it. 

***

I do love creative advertisement and fashion photography. So much so that I enjoy watching TV and photo ads. However, what most fashion magazines are doing at the moment is not fair dinkum. The consumer and reader psychologically approaches any given advertisement with different levels of trustworthiness and openness regarding the explicitness of the ad. The normal ads, we tell ourselves, are selling things to us, so we decide whether we are interested or not - consciously. The other ones go directly into your subconscious and convince you of the goodness of an ad based on apparently scientific, honest, and sincere reviews and recommendations. They have a bigger impact on your psyche. How do I know? Despite being very aware of this issue, I have found myself frozen in space, my hand holding one of those very beauty products that I have seen showcased and recommended by a fashion magazine. Oh Dear. I am human. I am not alone. thousands of women are doing the same without even realising that what they call choosing is subconsciously induced by publicity.

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"Sita Sings the Blues" by Nina Paley (2008)

The movie can be watched online at Nina Paley's website.

Sita Sings the Blues is an animated film based on one of the episodes in the Ramayana, but adapted to modern sensibilities, that has Sita -Rama's wife- as the centre of the story. The movie deals with love, longing, faithfulness, exile, search for love and destiny.

The movie intertwines four different types of 2-D colourful animation, each one offering four different approaches to the same chapter of the Ramayana:
1/ There is the story on how the movie was created and how the author came to think of it, how her personal life got mixed up with the project. 
2/ There is the story of the chapter told straight forward. 
3/ There is a musical version of it in which Sita -the main character- sings some classic blues that convey what is happening in the story, and in which Sita expresses her feelings and mood. 
4/ Finally, there is a review of comment of the story told made by two h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s Hindu shadow puppets, who offer a witty interpretation of it expressed in an every-day language. 
5/ There is even an intermission, as still happens in Indian cinemas, with a cute and kitsch show.

The movie can be confusing at the beginning, but once you understand the different parts,  you will immerse yourself in a movie that is original, witty and very entertaining. Something completely different from what you are used to watch in modern animation. 

There are not many independent animation movies being made by women. Just this deserves praise. However, what makes the movie so good is its originality, the concept lying behind, and its wittiness. The music is great, not just because of the blues. 
 
The film has been controversial because Paley was not aware that the Annette Hanshaw's songs used in the film were still under copyright, despite the singer being dead for many years. Hanshaw's heirs sued Paley for an astronomical sum, but they reached an agreement and settled for $50,000, which is a tremendous amount of money for an independent artist who made this film using her own money, donations, and counted with the free help of Indian musicians and actors.

You can donate by visiting Paley's website.

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Carmen Steffens (Perth WA)

93-93 William St
Perth Western Australia 6000
(08) 9324 3556
Website
Hours:
    Mon-Thu 10:00 - 18:00
    Fri 10:00 - 20:00
    Sat 10:00 - 17:00
    Sun 12:00 - 17:00

Carmen Steffens in a Brazilian franchise with hundred of shops overseas that sells both women and men's leather and silicone shoes and bags.

Semi-hidden in the Raine Square, the Perth shop is relatively small, but very spacious, with a nice seating area in the centre. It has a very European feeling. They have a focus on good quality, bright colours, attention to the detail, glitter and sexiness. They only bring a few pairs of each model, so you get a very exclusive thing when you buy one of their products regarding both style and colour.

I especially like their flats and ballerinas, which are not only beautifully designed, but also very comfortable. The silicone flats are beautiful, cute, and comfy, and they are not smelly or sticky on your feet.

Customer service is wonderful, with very warm and accommodating staff. Even if you are just browsing around and do not buy anything, they are extremely friendly and welcoming.

They really put a lot of effort in packing your shoes. They put a big of fancy in their carry bags, provide wonderful satin-red silk dust bags for your shoes, and even give the payment receipt in an elegantly designed paper wallet.

DOWNS
+ Pricing is a bit high. Wait for discounts and sales.
+ The sizing can be a bit awkward sometimes for Australian standards. They have the Brazilian, American and European sizing marked on the shoes, but some of the pairs fit one size and a half, if that makes any sense, so they can be a bit small or loose on your feet, if your feet, like mine are a bit uneven. You might need to buy insoles to find the right fit.
+ Their International website is partially written in Portuguese. 

UPDATE JANUARY 2013
The shop at Wesley has closed down.

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